How Would You Design Red Mage!?

[Jinko]

Look at Shaman from WoW as an example.

It has multiple uses,
Elemental Shaman - uses magic (back line)
Enhancement Shaman - can use some elemental magic but mostly melee skills (front line)
Healing Shaman - can use healing magic (back line)

I think for RDM something like this would be good, how they would work this all into one class is the problem as WoW has talents trees which change the aspect of the class.

Stances maybe ? obviously the stance would have to alter the skills and stats dramatically, it would be very interesting none the less though.

Something like a stance that increases melee damage by X% and another stance to increase magic damage by X%, them augment the class further with materia and gear designed around a certain play style.

You could take it further in that when you switch stance the spells completely change, from long distance spells to close range melee skills with the same effects.

[Duelle]

Look at Shaman from WoW as an example.

It has multiple uses,
Elemental Shaman - uses magic (back line)
Enhancement Shaman - can use some elemental magic but mostly melee skills (front line)
Healing Shaman - can use healing magic (back line)

I think for RDM something like this would be good, how they would work this all into one class is the problem as WoW has talents trees which change the aspect of the class.

Well, enhance has the choice of hard-casting stuff and burning their mana that way, or casting when procs are up and making their spells instant. Art of War for paladins was a similar mechanic where your offensive (Exorcism) and restorative (Flash of Light) spells were instant and had inconvenient cast times when used outside of Art of War procs.

That being said, going back to the comment I made about letting different weapon classes equip the Red Mage crystal could possibly help us lean in that direction to simulate "specs" without having to actually put "specs" in the game. As I see it, all it would take is setting restrictions for each weapon class when dealing with a hybrid job like RDM.

PS: Great idea, Ramsey.